Reputation Mgmt Thru Social Media: An Exercise In Perception

Social Media is the most effective tool you have to manage your Online Reputation. At it’s heart, this is an exercise in perception which can be quite delicate.

Online Reputation Mgmt And Social Media

Recent statistics show that 85% of the time, people check out a company’s reputation online before choosing where to spend their hard earned cash. Tackling this task anyplace else is not efficient nor effective, and therefore makes no sense.

The Internet is where your company and it’s reputation will live or die by the reviews, the comments left behind by satisfied (or dissatisfied!) customers, and sometimes just by crackpots (competitors) that have nothing better to do. In other words, this will occur on Social Media sites including Facebook and Twitter, but equally importantly on directory and review sites like Yelp, Foursquare and Superpages.

Contrary to the reaction of many business people, this is a very good thing! Why?!

It’s good because this way, the victories are in full view of the public, and more importantly how you handle the defeats will be as well!

These present valuable opportunities…

Using Social Media To Manage Perception

Where better?!

The public and personal environment of Social Media allows you to manage the perception of your company’s reputation by going out of your way to handle whatever problem arises. It doesn’t matter whether it was a real problem, or was just perceived as one. The end result is the same, and the challenge to your online reputation must be handled promptly and visibly.

Many companies have ignored the open and public nature of Social Media’s impact on their business to their everlasting regret. Often with businesses that really had very few problems with their customers.

In these cases, allowing the public to see bad reviews, comments and general bellyaching by crackpots are often unaddressed. The perception becomes the reality to the public, resulting in reduced traffic and eroding sales revenues.

The lost opportunity here was not that the dissatisfied customers (crackpots) involved could have been made happy. It was that the public could have seen the business jumping through hoops, showing their willingness to do whatever it takes to satisfy a customer.

Managing Perception Through Social Media

Interacting with the public via Social Media is challenging for many businesses because they mistakenly believe that this is simply the new Yellow Pages, newspaper or broadcast advertising media. It is all that, and so much more.

The very basis of Social Media is that the content is user generated. Just as much by the public, as it is by those seeking to harness it’s power to create revenues through sales of products and services.

A similar analogy is when a TV commercial airs for a product, and the rest of the viewers can hear when anyone shouts from their living room couch: “This product is horrible!”

Think of this as a dance, where you are given the opportunity to inspire the judgemental public to be a party to your company’s efforts and create a pleasant and artful performance that brings smiles to the faces of all viewers.

Now you get an idea of how Social Media can be used to not only do damage control for your online reputation. It can also be used to promote a positive and harmonious perception of your organization that will increase your profits.

Contact us here at Peak Reputation, Inc. so that our full service marketing agency can assist you in building or maintaining a positive online reputation. Your Social Media campaigns can and should be crafted with an eye toward engaging with the public to craft a perception that will make you proud.